FORTHCOMING IN THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONFERENCE ON RENAISSANCE MUSIC, LISBON AND ÉVORA, MAY 2003 (this page will be removed at time of publication)
NB: TWO EXAMPLES OMITTED HERE
© Barbara Haggh, 15 October 2004
Ciconia’s Nova musica: A Work for Singers in Renaissance Padua
Barbara Haggh
University of Maryland, College Park
Nova musica, a treatise by Johannes Ciconia (d. 1412), is difficult to understand, even after Oliver B. Ellsworth's edition.[1] Although more of Ciconia's superfluous or wrong attributions have now been identified, as have other sources he used,[2] the destination of this treatise has not been established. Was it speculative – intended for the ruminations of musici? Or was it for practicing musicians, like Ciconia’s De proportionibus?[3] Here, we analyze Ciconia’s citations of music in Nova musica in light of his daily duties at the Cathedral of Padua. We conclude that Ciconia destined Nova musica for singers at this cathedral, his contribution to Padua’s musical Renaissance.[4] Inter alia, we reconsider the origin of the polyphonic tropes to the Lamentations of Jeremiah that were sung at Padua Cathedral on Good Friday, perhaps under Ciconia’s direction.
In Nova musica, Ciconia cites 45 chants of many genres:
TABLE:
CHANT CITED BY CICONIA
Given are incipit, page number in Ellsworth’s edition, comments on genre (where necessary), CAO number and manuscripts or AMS page number and manuscripts, page number in edition of Paduan ordinal=P, Bryden & Hughes’ index [=BH]: page number in volume 1, page number in AM=Antiphonale monasticum and/or GN=Graduel neumé and/or LU=Liber usualis and/or other edition.[5]
The chants preceded by an asterisk are part of a long passage Ciconia attributes to Hieronymus (E 298-301), but borrows (and lightly edits) from the anonymous Quid est cantus?[6]
Cantus planus multiplex[7]
Juste et pie vivamus a3, E 198-199, antiphon for the third Sunday of Advent, CAO 3531 all, not in ordinal, BH 246, LU 339
Miserere mei Deus a3, E 188-189, antiphon (Ps. 50) for Monday Lauds on ferial days, CAO 3773 EVHSL, P index 258, BH 280, AM 38
Tu
patris a2,
E 203-205, Te Deum, P index 266, BH
411, AM 1250-1253
Antiphon melody types
Octo sunt beatitudines E 388-389, Latin mode eight type (Terence Bailey, The Intonation Formulas of Western Chant, Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1974, 90)
Primum querite E 380-381, Latin mode one type (Bailey, 81)
*Tertia dies E 300-301,303, Latin mode three type (Bailey, 84)
Antiphons
of the Office
*Beati estis sancti Dei E 300-301 & 303, CAO 1581 CEMV/ DFSL, not in ordinal, BH 60, AM 877
Cum vidissent turbe, E 292-293 (especially 293 n.49), CAO 2049 CGERDFS, not in ordinal, BH 103, LA 163,[8]
Ecce nomen Domini [venit] E 380-381, CAO 2527 all but DL, P 48a, BH 146, LU 317
Ego sum Deus patrum E 214-215, first of series of Rogations antiphons in Paduan processionals, CAO 2591 only MDF, P cxxxiv, BH 153, AM 982
*Euge [serve bone] E 300-301 & 303, probably the antiphon, which has two circumflexae near cadences, CAO 2732-2734 all but GB, not in ordinal, BH 171, LU 1195-6
Ex quo omnia E 312-313, CAO 2751 all but C, not in ordinal, BH 172, LU 915
Gloria tibi trinitas E 296-297, CAO 2948 not CL, P 175ac, BH 196, LU 914
Isti
sunt sancti qui habebant loricas
E 214-215&296-297, in the Bolognese antiphoner Angelica 123[9]
Novit dominus [viam justorum] E 296-297, CAO 3965 all but CGD, not in ordinal, BH 298, LR 381[10]
O rex glorie E 296-297, CAO 4079 all, P cxxxv&clxxv&140ejkl, BH 308, LU 853
O sapientia E 296-297, CAO 4081 all, P 62b, BH 308, LU 340
*Precursor Johannes exsultat E 300-301, Benedictus antiphon, CAO 4358 all, P 84can, BH 332, WA 59,[11] LA 79
Prophete predicaverunt E 298-299, CAO 4392 all, not in ordinal, BH 335, AM 215, cited by Regino of Prüm
Regem venturum Dominum E 312-313, invitatory antiphon, CAO 1149, P 50a, BH 361, only in WA 8
Spiritus domini super me E 290-291, CAO 4999 all, P 65j, BH 399, AR 240, LA 24
Venite adoremus E 312-313,
Ps. 94, invitatory psalm, P 65c&125c
Virgo dei genitrix E 296-297, CAO 5448 all, not in ordinal, BH 442, only WA 303, cited by theorists in eleventh and thirteenth centuries (TML)
Responsories of the Office
Ecce eicies [ejicis] me E 216-217, CAO 6590 only in E, not in ordinal or BH
Isti sunt dies E 214-215, CAO 7013 all, P 118c, BH 235, LA 166, WA 105
Introits
Ad te levavi animam meam E 386-391 (Ciconia analyzes this introit as an example of plagal tetrardus mode), AMS not M, P 48m, BH 6, LU 318
*Circumdederunt me E 300-301, 303 (see 303 n. 64: Ciconia does not specify this as an introit, but it is unlikely that this is the much rarer antiphon; compare the distribution of the antiphon in the CANTUS indices; the introit is frequently cited by theorists), AMS all but M, P 96&99jl, BH 86, LU 497
*Ex ore infantium E 300-301 & 303, this introit called an offertory in Ciconia’s text, AMS not in M, P 70a, BH 172, LU 427
*Loquetur dominus E 300-301 & 303, AMS not in MR, not in ordinal, BH 266, LU 1492
Os justi E 312-313 (see p. 313 n.76), AMS all but MR, P 191, BH 317, LU 1200
Rorate celi desuper E 314-315 (example of ‘pause’ not ‘distinction’), AMS all but M, P 57b (with rubric: Ad Missam officium; Ciconia calls the chant an ‘office’), BH 368, LU 353&1269
Graduals
Anima nostra E 298-299, AMS all, not in ordinal, LU 1167
Bonum est confidere E 312-313; AMS all, P xciv, BH 75, GN 334, LU 1037
Exaltent eum E 312-313; not in AMS, not in ordinal, BH 173, GN 390, LU 1122/2
Os justi E 312-313, Ciconia calls it an offertory, but it is a gradual, AMS BKS only, P 185b n. 475, BH 317, LU 1191
Ostende nobis Domine E 310-311,
AMS all but R, not in ordinal, BH 318, GN 11
Protector noster aspice E 214-215 (215 n. 268 is in error: Ciconia indeed cites the gradual), AMS all, not in ordinal, BH 337, LU 1003
Alleluia Verse
*Beatus vir Sanctus Martinus E 298-303, not in AMS, ordinal, BH 66, LU 1747, Karlheinz Schlager, Alleluia-Melodien I: bis 1100, Monumenta monodica medii aevi, 7 (Kassel: Barenreiter, 1968), pp. 46 (musical edition), 678 (ThK 396: in Italian manuscripts).
Tract
*Commovisti E 298-299, 303, AMS all but R, not in ordinal, BH 89, GN 67, LU 507
Offertories
Confortamini E 310-311, not in AMS or ordinal, BH 93, GN 10-11, OTT 9[12]
Domine E 300-301, especially 301 n. 64. This text is not from Quid est cantus?
Communion
*Omnes qui E 300-301, AMS all but M, not in ordinal, BH 313, LU 807
Admonition
Oremus. Lumen Christi E 220-221
(the clef given by Ellsworth is incorrect, since this chant never
cadences on
C), Holy Saturday, P cxxxii&126b. Two other Italian processionals
have a
similar melody: see Example One below and RISM B XIV 2, I-113:
Piacenza,
Biblioteca comunale, 7, f. 35v - identical to Padua; and I-150: Siena,
Biblioteca Comunale F.VI.11, f.84r (slight variants). Compare the different Beneventan formula: Le
codex 10673 de la Bibliothèque Vaticane,
fonds latin (Xie siècle): Graduel bénéventain, Paléographie
musicale, 14
(Berne: Herbert Lang, reprinted in 1971), 419.
EXAMPLE ONE
Unidentified
*In his ergo diebus E 300-301, 303, not in AMS, CAO, ordinal or BH.
*Valeat phalanx nostra E 300-301, 303, only known from Quid est cantus? Most likely for St. Maurice d’Agaune: cf. Analecta hymnica medii aevi [AH], ed. Clemens Blume and Guido Maria Dreves, and Henry Marriott Bannister, 55 vols. (Leipzig, 1886-1922), vol. 7, no. 176 (p. 194) Sequence: Alludat laetus ordo [...] Gaudet phalanx caelica; AH 49, p. 138 trope Laeti militiae has the phrase [...] Strenue Agaunensis perstemus laude phalangis [...]; AH 53, p. 303 (Notker?) ... phalanges.
Where did Ciconia find these chants? Were they from the repertory he knew in Padua? Most of the chants Ciconia cites are found in the earliest graduals and antiphoners of the Western Church, but only eighteen are named in the thirteenth-century ordinal of Padua. One more is in an early medieval manuscript from nearby Bologna. Twelve chants are part of a long borrowed passage from the treatise Quid est cantus?; of these, nine are not cited in the ordinal of Padua. Further research into the plainchant repertory of Padua will be necessary,[13] but our preliminary investigation suggests that Ciconia was working in two worlds: not only the world of the cantor, which furnished contemporary musical examples, but also the world of the musicus, who, following tradition, continued to transmit chants long silenced or from remote locations that had served as exempla to venerated forefathers.
The polyphonic examples lead to the same conclusion. Ciconia considers parallel two- and three-voice organum as well as occursus in Nova musica, book one, chapters 73-74. The ordinal discussed below does give evidence of improvised parallel two-part polyphony in Padua, but all of the notated cantus planus binatim from Padua employs contrary motion, which Ciconia never mentions. Ciconia’s examples of cantus planus multiplex are used in book one to demonstrate consonances, not improvisation.[14] They include two well-known chants drawn in the style of the Musica enchiriadis. A third chant, Juste et pie vivamus, is not cited there, but in other treatises used by Ciconia: by Aurelian, Berno of Reichenau, and Regino of Prüm.
To argue that all of Ciconia’s musical examples are derived from theory treatises would be incorrect, however. All of his sets of examples demonstrating echemata, intervals, and modes appear to be of his own composition, since they have not been found in other sources.[15] In short, Ciconia’s musical examples are not unlike those in modern textbooks, a mixture of ‘textbook examples’ and of others from a performed repertory. But for whom did Ciconia write his textbook?
* * *
The scholarship on Ciconia has concentrated on his ceremonial polyphony and influential patrons at the expense of his daily responsibilities as a singer, which would have included the singing of chant. These are amply documented and are essential for any interpretation of his music treatise.
Ciconia’s biography is far from complete,[16] but we know that he held the benefices of mansionarius and custos (sexton) at Padua Cathedral in 1402 and 1403, respectively.[17] Before, he had received a beneficium et cappelania sacerdotalis, which he resigned on becoming mansionarius, which would seem to constitute evidence that he was already then a priest.[18] Anne Hallmark noticed, however, that the word presbyter after Ciconia’s name in documents from as late as 1411 was crossed out. She notes that from 1411 on a number of notarial documents call him a canon, as he is called in the explicit of the De proportionibus, also from 1411.[19]
It is not known when or if Ciconia became cantor at Padua Cathedral. Certainly, no documents call him master of the boys. The April 1403 document describing him as cantor and custos must use the former term to mean "singer," since the position of sexton, with its heavy workload,[20] would have been incompatible with the cantor’s responsibility for the choir. Indeed, these two positions represent radically different places in the hierarchy of the Cathedral’s officers.
It is possible that Ciconia was cantor by 6 February 1408, when he examined a candidate for the office of mansionarius, a singer Orpheus presbyter, in the sacristy of the cathedral in the presence of Francesco Zabarella, archpriest of the cathedral, and Johannes de Plebe, then mansionarius. Ciconia evidently had the authority to judge the musician and is called cantor in this document.[21] On 13 July 1412, Luca da Lendinara was appointed cantor of Padua cathedral following Ciconia’s death, so presumably Ciconia did become cantor before he died, although earlier readings of the document interpret this word as custos.[22]
The duties of priests, mansionarii, sextons, and of the cantor at Padua Cathedral are found in instructions in a thirteenth-century ordinal, in manuscript statutes, and in a description of the Good Friday procession added to a fourteenth-century processional.[23] All priests were expected to celebrate the divine office during the week when they were assigned to function as hebdomadarius, a responsibility which rotated among all of the priests. That week, after Sunday Matins, the hebdomadarius would bless the font and sprinkle holy water, and then celebrate the customary Marian mass at the altar of St. John. The following week, he would sing Prime and the second conventual mass.
Ciconia certainly performed the functions of mansionarius, later of custos. Like the canons, the individuals with these functions had to attend the mass and office daily. The custos was responsible for the bells, for opening and locking the doors to the church, for making candles available, and for preparing or collecting the service books, linens, and other items necessary for the divine office. He also prepared the hosts and the large candle for Holy Saturday and provided any other materials necessary for the divine service, in or outside of the church.
The cantor shared the responsibilities associated with music with the master of the boys (also magister scolarum),[24] and disagreements could easily arise, to judge from statutes proscribing the usurpation of the other individual’s function. Yet both participated together in the two most prominent liturgical dramas of the year, those of Christmas Matins and of Easter Matins. In the former, the two men played the pastores, alongside two canons, who were the obstetrices. At Easter Matins the two men sang the refrain Dic nobis, Maria, quid vidisti in via? and the concluding verses to the planctus of Mary Magdalene.[25]
The cantor’s main occupation was to select singers, instruct them, and participate in worship, often by intoning. He chose the boys (scolares) who would sing the first three responsories of Matins and instructed them diligently to sing the responsories and verses correctly. He also taught the boys about the divine office, and instructed the deacons, subdeacons and chaplains, beginning with the youngest. Fifteen days before Palm Sunday, he taught six scolares to sing the Gloria laus.
At greater duplex feasts, the cantor directed the choir with the magister scolarum. (In France, the position of the cantor was a dignity and was more highly valued than that of the master of the boys. In Padua, the master of the boys often had priority over the cantor.) At all high feasts of the year on Sunday and ferias, the cantor gave the signal at Vespers and Matins and other offices to have bells rung. If necessary, he would search for a good bellringer. At Vespers and Matins, the cantor sat on the side of the archpriest,[26] except during offices led by the mansionarius or the custos of the week (this is not explained further). (According to the statutes, the cantor was to intone the first antiphons of each office on the side of the hebdomadarius, even at mass.) When the bishop did not celebrate, the cantor intoned the Gloria in excelsis and had priority over the master of boys.[27] At lesser duplex feasts, he intoned the introit, Kyrie, et cetera with the master of boys, but only the cantor intoned the Gloria in excelsis.[28]
One statute is more precise.[29] If the bishop celebrated a greater duplex feast, the master of the boys assisted him by holding the episcopal baton and pronounced to the bishop the antiphons, Gloria, and usual texts.[30] If the bishop did not celebrate at a greater duplex feast, the cantor was preferred over the master of the boys and the former intoned the Gloria in excelsis. But the master of the boys presided if the bishop was present at processions and litanies, announced indulgences and times of confession, and had priority on all Saturdays of the year, the days that were typically filled with Marian devotions.
At all lesser duplex major and minor Sundays and ferias of the year, the cantor intoned the mass alone from the side of the hebdomadarius. He also intoned the Benedictions throughout the year, such as the Lumen revelationum of February 2. The cantor intoned the Asperges me every Sunday (Vidi aquam during the Easter season).
Processions heightened ceremony at the Cathedral of Padua and were thus strictly regulated.[31] The cantor always led the litanies and processions, regardless of whether or not the bishop was present, and always decided which hymns and antiphons would be sung at the churches to be visited. The master of the boys had priority, however, in that he would intone the first antiphon of the
procession, whereafter the cantor would intone at the next station, then the master of boys, and so on in alternation.
The cantor’s most important duties were to prepare official ceremonies and those of the triduum sacrum, Easter morning, and Ascension day, some which included the singing of cantus planus binatim in Ciconia’s time. At Vespers and Matins of the triduum sacrum, the cantor directed the choir without the master of the boys. For Holy Saturday and the vigil of Pentecost, the cantor ordered the priests by their rank for the procession to bless the fonts, and he also distributed the readings from the books of the Prophets for those two Saturdays and for all Ember Days of the year.
The cantor’s other duties revolved around the very frequent masses and offices for the dead. The cantor organized their ceremonies and intoned the Subvenite and other responsories and verses, notably the responsory after the third lesson of vigils. The cantor intoned it plana voce, whereafter its verse was “seconded,” that is, doubled by the superius singer, presumably at a higher pitch, producing polyphony.[32] He distributed crosses to the boys and censers and other objects. On the days of funerals, he received the double candle for funerals.[33] The cantor assisted the bishop at masses for the dead in the Cathedral and in subordinate parish churches and held the baton of the bishop.[34] When a canon celebrated the mass for the dead, the cantor would assist him, unless it was a mass at terce for a deceased canon or cleric from the Cathedral. The cantor also celebrated masses for the dead held exceptionally for specific individuals (missae specialis).
* * *
The
duties just described explain why Ciconia might have felt the need to
write a
music treatise. Having come from the north to Italy, Ciconia probably
had
different ideas about how music should be taught. If he indeed became
cantor,
he shared the task of educating boys – and most likely competed with –
the magister scolarum. The concerns of
the treatise – the correct understanding of intervals, consonance,
tonality,
and organum – provided theoretical underpinnings not only for chant,
but for
the improvised two-part polyphony prescribed
in the ordinal, such as the verses to the responsories of the Office of
the
Dead.
Ciconia’s Nova musica nowhere discusses polyphony in contrary motion like the cantus planus binatim surviving in two early fourteenth-century processionals from Padua Cathedral, Biblioteca Capitolare, MSS C 55 and C 56.[35] Nevertheless, it is important to review Ciconia’s role in its performance. Integrated into both processionals is two-part polyphony for the Purification (February 2), Easter, and Ascension Day, with the parts notated successively in black square notation. The polyphony is mostly note against note and syllabic, with some neumatic and few melismatic embellishments. Contrary motion predominates. All final and most internal cadences are at the unison, but some are at the fifth and, exceptionally, at the third.[36] All final cadences are on D except as indicated.
The polyphony for Good Friday is found only in MS C 56, where it was added at the back of the manuscript. It includes an earlier setting of Popule meus, which began the Improperia, in black square notation, and a later two-part mensural setting of a series of tropes to the Lamentations of Jeremiah and of the Improperia, in a notation strikingly similar to the triangular white notation of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Canonici Misc. 213.
The instructions for the cantus planus binatim are found in the rubrics of the processionals. On the feast of the Purification, after the noon meal, the procession entered the church and the boys sang the antiphon Ave, gratia plena in two-part polyphony: the first section is neumatic, but from in ulnis liberatorem to the end of the composition, the setting is syllabic. After the antiphon Responsum accepit Symeon,[37] the boys sang the verse Suscipiens Symeon puerum Ihesum in two-part polyphony, which cadences on G. The word Ihesum is emphasized with repeated Gs in both voices, the only repeated notes in the setting.
On Ascension Day, after the monophonic alleluia and verse Nisi ego abiero paraclitus, two clerici sang the polyphonic verse, Quare sic aspicitis, Afterwords two angels on a platform extended the cross, singing Quis est iste que venit de Edom in two-part polyphony. Then the two clerici sang the monophonic verse Iste formosus, but halfway through, they turned to the people and repeated it in two-part polyphony.
The only mensural polyphony is the Good Friday polyphony, and it is of great interest, because if Ciconia did become cantor, he would have led the singing of it without any assistance from the master of the boys. As an added text on ff. 60r-v of MS C 56 attests, after the meal on Good Friday all of the clergy processed to the choir of the church before the main altar. The four mansionarii and the custos brought the catafalque with the Body of Christ. Two priests stood before the altar while the others genuflected, and the former began the Lamentations of Jeremiah (by singing the tropes Heu, Heu, Domine and Cecidit corona), making appropriate gestures and actions.[38] The other two priests genuflected and sang the trope Spiritus oris, then the first two genuflected and sang Deserta est omnis leticia. This alternation continued through the last trope, Merore cordis lancij,[39] whereafter all four priests rose. Now the first two turned to the people to exite them with hand gestures to remember the passion,[40] and sang the invitatory Venite o fideles populi. The other two priests turned to the people and sang Venite et ploremus ante dominum, and then the first two began the Improperia with Popule meus in two-part polyphony.[41]
Polyphonic tropes[42] to the Lamentations that begin with the verse Heu, Heu, Domine appear only in one processional from Padua Cathedral and in one manuscript from San Giorgio in Alga near Venice.[43] No other Italian churches cultivated the singing of these tropes in polyphony, as far as we know.[44] It is astonishing that monophonic settings of these interpolated texts are found only in Portuguese liturgical books dating from the sixteenth until the twentieth century, but not in any manuscript or printed Spanish processionals.[45] To the fascinating discussion of the history of this trope we can add new evidence favoring transmission of the trope from Portugal to Italy, and not vice-versa. Ciconia may have been directly involved.[46]
Contacts between Portugal and Italy must have been regular and frequent after the death of St. Anthony of Padua, the widely venerated Franciscan saint who was born in Lisbon and studied in Coimbra before making his way to Assisi and eventually Padua.[47] Franciscan spirituality emphasized the suffering of Christ, precisely what was commemorated in the elaborate ritual for Good Friday.
Whereas all sources of Heu, Heu, Domine from before 1650 and from Portugal are monophonic and use the same melody (with insignificant variants - see Example 2),[48] the earliest Italian sources are exclusively polyphonic and bear little resemblance to the Portuguese melody. Example Two presents the chant for Heu, Heu, Domine from seven Portuguese sources:[49]
EXAMPLE TWO
Sources for Example Two:
1. Braga, Missal of 1558, f. 96r. Transcribed by Manuel Pedro Ferreira, “As origens,” 96; Moro and Cattin, “Il codice 359,” 162; and by Corbin, Essai, 307. According to the rubrics, the verses beginning with Heu, Heu, were sung by two boys. The chorus answered.
2. Processional from a Marian church in northern Portugal, 16th-c. addition. Described in RISM B XIV 2, US-19 (Chicago, Newberry Library, MS 155 [Western Michigan MS 1]). Transcribed by Michel Huglo.
3. Monastic processional from Coimbra, 1727: Porto, Biblioteca Municipal, ms. M.M. 76, p. 119. Transcribed by Manuel Pedro Ferreira.
4. Ibid., p. 138.
5. Évora, printed processional of 1657 or 1659(?), f. 23r, with four-part Heu, f. [27]v. Transcribed by Manuel Pedro Ferreira.
6. Braga, Missal of 1924, p. 208. According to the rubrics, the verses beginning with Heu, Heu were sung by two clerici. The chorus answered. Photocopy provided by Manuel Pedro Ferreira.
7. Braga cathedral and streets in 1998. Transcribed by Manuel Pedro Ferreira (quarter note approximately MM 88).
The melody in the Portuguese sources is virtually the same. Most cadence on G, but the sources from Évora and northern Portugal cadence on E. The two-part mensural setting in the Paduan processional, MS C 56, cadences on the fifth CG. The lower voice of the cantus planus binatim setting in codex 359 from San Giorgio in Alga near Venice of c. 1500 cadences on G. This melody is more recitational than the Portuguese melody, however, and not similar enough to be definitely related to it.[50]
All sources, whether Portuguese or Paduan, agree in assigning the Heu, Heu and following verses to two singers. In Padua, they were priests singing in alternation with two other priests, but in Braga, two choirboys and later two clerics alternated with a chorus.
Braga is the only city in Europe known to have cultivated the singing of the trope, Heu, Heu, Domine, from the sixteenth century to the present day, as Michel Huglo's catalogue of European processionals and Manuel Pedro Ferreira's studies of Portuguese manuscripts confirm.[51] Moreover, manuscripts from Padua and Braga alone share the first five elements of the Lamentations trope.[52]
It seems worth considering the possibility that the Heu, Heu, Domine trope existed in Braga before its earliest surviving sources, and that it was brought to Italy from Braga by a singer, Humbertus de Salinis, who was part of the chapel of Pope Boniface IX in the early fifteenth century.[53] Salinis, from northern Europe and perhaps Liège -- he composed a motet for St. Lambert, patron saint of the city -- had supplicated Boniface IX for a benefice from the diocese of Braga in Portugal on 29 May 1403.[54] He appears as a papal familiar and singer on 10 July 1409, three days after Boniface IX was crowned as Alexander V. By that time, he had several Portuguese benefices. According to John Nádas,[55] Salinis was in the chapel of Alexander V in 1409 and 1410, and Ciconia may have been to Pisa during the time of the church council. Although the two musicians were employed in different locations, they could have known each other during that one-year period.[56] It is interesting that Salinis’s motet Jhesu salvator seculi (for Good Friday!) heads the original form of Canonici Misc. 213,[57] evidence for his connections to the Veneto. We should also note that Ciconia had other contacts in proximity to Boniface IX, though none besides Salinis who had been in Portugal. Ciconia’s employer at the turn of the century, Cardinal d'Alençon, was a sympathizer of Boniface IX, and Zacara da Teramo, whose compositions appear with Ciconia’s in many manuscripts, was singer and papal secretary to Boniface IX.[58]
Salinis may have also brought the idea of singing Heu, heu, Domine and the other tropes in polyphony. He was a composer of polyphony, as his compositions in the Codex Chantilly and in Canonici Misc. 213 attest. That would help to explain why the Paduans sang mensural polyphony for the verses that was unrelated to the Portuguese chant. In any case, Ciconia would have been the most likely, if not the only musician who could have transmitted the trope from Salinis to Padua Cathedral.[59]
* * *
In a recent study, we suggested that Ciconia probably used manuscripts in Milan, Rome, Bologna and Venice to compose his treatise. Did he also work in Padua?[60] The library of the Benedictine abbey of San Giustina was surely one he could have used. His patron, cardinal Philippe d'Alençon ruled over this abbey until his death in 1397, and many manuscripts with Ciconia's compositions were kept at the abbey. A fifteenth-century inventory of the library surprisingly lists no music theory besides Isidore’s Etymologies, which Ciconia cites, but numerous grammar treatises, though none cited by Ciconia. This indicates the renewed interest in grammar at this time, and in his treatise, Ciconia does apply concepts and terminology from the trivium to music.[61]
In composing his treatise, Ciconia may also have profitted from musician acquaintances. Margaret Bent noticed that Arnold von Geilhoven, a Flemish law student who included a long chapter on music in his Sompnium doctrinale, was one of the witnesses when Zabarella presented Ciconia to a benefice in 1401.[62]
Annette Kreutziger-Herr places Ciconia’s treatises within a Renaissance at Italian universities,[63] but there is no evidence for Ciconia’s presence at the University of Padua.[64] That Ciconia's treatise covers basic, introductory subjects: music and its origins, definitions of terminology, intervals, monochord divisions, the modes, and even musical analysis (of the most well-known introit in the chant repertory, Ad te levavi) is evidence that it was destined not for musici or monks, but for young students at the Cathedral.[65] Most interesting is Ciconia’s emphasis in the treatise on the singing of chant and of improvised polyphony, not of mensural polyphony, which is nowhere described in the Cathedral’s ordinal. A local (cathedral) destination of Nova musica could explain why Prosdocimus, who taught at the university, never names Ciconia,[66] and why Ciconia’s treatise was not read outside the Veneto.[67] The treatise did have consequences, however. As the musica mensurabilis for Good Friday added to the Cathedral processional in white notation attests, the generation of singers in Padua after Ciconia participated fully in the musical Renaissance.[68]
ABSTRACT
Was Johannes Ciconia’s Nova musica destined for musici or cantores?
Ciconia cites 45 chants, some taken from earlier theory, others from practice. Ciconia’s activities at Padua Cathedral (described in the ordinal and statutes of the Cathedral) included the supervision of chant and instruction of boys, so it is plausible that he intended his treatise for Cathedral musicians, if not boys. Ciconia’s treatise includes discussions of parallel polyphony unlike the cantus planus binatim in Cathedral manuscripts, but prescribed in the ordinal. Ciconia may have also introduced to the Cathedral the singing on Good Friday of tropes to the Lamentations beginning Heu, Heu, Domine and set to mensural polyphony, because he had occasion to meet Hubertus de Salinis, a singer and composer who came from Braga to join the chapel of Pope Alexander V. In these ways, Ciconia contributed to a musical Renaissance at Padua Cathedral.
© Barbara Haggh, 15 October 2004
[1]Johannes Ciconia Nova musica and De proportionibus, Greek and Latin Music Theory, 9 (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1993).
[2]See this author’s “Ciconia’s Citations in Nova musica and De proportionibus as Biography,” in a forthcoming publication. Many of Ciconia’s sources could be identified thanks to RISM, the Thesaurus musicarum latinarum, and the Lexicon musicum latinum medii aevi. See Michel Huglo, Les manuscrits du processionnal, RISM B XIV 1-2 (Munich: Henle, 1999, 2004); Christian Meyer and others, eds., The Theory of Music: Manuscripts from the Carolingian Era up to c. 1500. Addenda, Corrigenda, RISM B III 6 (Munich: Henle, 2003); Thomas Mathiesen, director and editor (with others) of TML, a searchable database at <http://www.music.indiana.edu/tml/start. html>; and Michael Bernhard’s Lexicon, a dictionary published in hard copy (Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1992-) and available at <http:// www.lml.badw.de/>.
[3]De proportionibus was written for the priest, canon of Vicenza, and distinguished singer, Johannes Gasparus (Ellsworth, Johannes Ciconia, 412-423). Nova musica was written “to branch the mind out in many directions [...] so that the new music may grow [...]” (ibid., 54-55), but its destination is not stated, even though it has a preface and prologue.
[4]If the treatise was destined for many musicians, not one, that could explain why it lacks a dedicatory preface.
[5]AMS = idem, Antiphonale missarum sextuplex (Rome: Herder, 1935); CAO=Réné-Jean Hesbert, Corpus antiphonalium officii, 6 vols. (Rome: Herder, 1963-1979); the ordinal of Padua is edited by Giulio Cattin and Anna Vildera, Il liber ordinarius della chiesa padovana, 2 vols. (Padua: Istituto per la storia ecclesiastica padovana: 2002), 3-10; BH=John Bryden and David Hughes, An Index of Gregorian Chant, vol. 1 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969); AM=Antiphonale monasticum (Solesmes, 1995, reprint of 1934 edition); Eugène Cardine, Graduel neumé (Solesmes, 1966); LU=Liber usualis (Tournai: Desclée, 1962).
[6]This treatise survives only in Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Palat. Lat. 235, on ff. 38-39. See RISM B III 6, 537; RISM B III 2, 106-107; and Michel Huglo, “Les noms des neumes et leur origine,” Études grégoriennes 1 (1954): 59 note 5, for a thorough bibliography. The Vatican manuscript, written in Germany in the eleventh century, reached Rome at an undetermined time, but probably after Ciconia’s death. It is likely that he saw it or a close copy (see Haggh, “Ciconia’s Citations,” forthcoming).
[7]Term
used by Pave»
Gancarczyk in Notae musicae artis: Musical Notation in
Polish Sources, 11th-16th Century, ed. Elóbieta Witkowska-Zaremba (Krakow: Musica
Iagellonica, 2001), 349-401.
[8]LA=Antiphonaire
monastique; XIIe siècle: Codex 601 de la bibliothèque capitulaire de
Lucques,
Paléographie musicale, 9 (Tournai, 1906).
[11]WA=Antiphonaire
monastique; XIIIe siècle: Codex F. 160 de la bibliothèque de la
cathédrale de
Worcester, Paléographie musicale, 12 (Tournai, 1922).
[13]Future research should consider the many liturgical manuscripts and fragments from Bologna and Padua. See Giacomo Baroffio, Iter liturgicum italicum (Padua: CLEUP Editrice, 1999), 26-34 (liturgical manuscripts and fragments in Bolognese libraries) and 182-185 (manuscripts and fragments in Paduan libraries).
[15]See Ellsworth, Johannes Ciconia, 266-281, 282-283 (not in Bailey, The Intonation Formulas), and 306-309.
[16]The documentation from Padua is vast and has never been fully presented. Nevertheless, see Margaret Bent and Anne Hallmark, The Works of Johannes Ciconia, Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century, 24 (Monaco: L’Oiseau-Lyre, 1985); Giuliano Di Bacco, John Nádas, Margaret Bent, and David Fallows, “Ciconia, Johannes,” The New Grove Dictionary, 2nd ed., Stanley Sadie, ed. (London: Macmillan, 2000), 836-842; David Fallows, “Ciconia, Johannes,MGG, 2d. ed., Ludwig Finscher, ed., Personenteil 4 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2000), cols. 1093-1103; Anne Hallmark, “Gratiosus, Ciconia, and Other Musicians at Padua Cathedral: Some Footnotes to Present Knowledge,” L’Europa e la musica del Trecento: Convegno IV: Certaldo 1984, L’Ars Nova italiana del Trecento, 6 (Certaldo, 1992), 69-84; John Nádas and Giuliano Di Bacco, “Verso uno ‘stile internazionale’ della musica nelle cappelle papali e cardinalizie durante il Grande Scisma (1378-1417): il caso di Johannes Ciconia da Liège,” Collectanea I, Capellae Apostolicae Sixtinaeque collectanea acta monumenta, 3 (Vatican, 1994), 7-74; idem, “The Papal Chapels and Italian Sources of Polyphony during the Great Schism,” Papal Music and Musicians in Late Medieval and Renaissance Rome (Oxford, 1998), 44-92. Cf. Raffaele Casimiri, Musica e Musicisti nella Cattedrale di Padova nei sec. XIV, XV, XVI (Rome, 1942).
[21]Suzanne Clercx, Johannes Ciconia, Un
musicien liegeois et son temps (vers 1335-1411),
vol. 1 (Brussels: Palais des Academies, 1960), 47 and n. 7.
[22]The New Grove, 2nd ed., 838 (cantor). Philippe Vendrix, “Johannes Ciconia, cantus [sic: cantor] et musicus,” Johannes Ciconia: Musicien de la transition (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), 8; Bent and Hallmark, The Works, x; and Clercx, Johannes Ciconia, 49, state that this individual was the new custos and not the new cantor. That Prosdocimus dedicates his Opusculum contra [...] Lucidari Marchetti Patavini to Luca de Lendenaria (Clercx, Johannes Ciconia, 47 and n. 9) suggests to me that Ciconia and Lendenaria were cantores, not custodes.
[23]These are edited by Giuseppe Vecchi in Uffici drammatici Padovani (Florence: Olschki, 1954), 163-171. Cf. Cattin and Vildera, Il liber ordinarius, 3-10. Fig. 7 is a map of the cathedral. The ordinal and processional are MSS E 57 and C 56 in the Biblioteca Capitolare.
[24]Here the word ambo (both) refers to the duo of cantor and master of the boys (see, for example, Vecchi, Uffici, 167). On Italian choirboys, see Osvaldo Gambassi, Pueri cantores nelle cattedrali d’Italia tra Medioevo e eta moderna: Le scuole eugeniane–Scuole di canto annesse alle cappelle musicali, Historiae musicae cultores biblioteca, 80 (Florence: Olschki, 1997).
[25]The Christmas Matins play, Quem queritis in praesepe, is of Italian origin. The two Paduan plays are transcribed in Vecchi, Uffici, 6-11 and 88-95.
[26]The archpriest of Padua cathedral in 1406 was Francesco Zabarella, who later became cardinal and bishop of Florence. He had appointed Ciconia to his first ‘Paduan’ benefices in 1401 (New Grove, 2nd ed., 837). Ciconia composed two motets for him, Doctorum principem and Ut te per omnes celitum. Zabarella inherited a house formerly belonging to Petrarch as his canonical house. See Bent, “Music and the Early Veneto Humanists,” 101, 118-119, and Anne Hallmark, “Protector, imo verus pater: Francesco Zabarella’s Patronage of Johannes Ciconia, Music in Renaissance Cities and Courts: Studies in Honor of Lewis Lockwood, ed. Jessie A. Owens and Anthony M. Cummings (Warren, MI, 1997), 153-168.
[27]On the bishops of Padua, see Benjamin G. Kohl, Padua under the Carrara, 1318-1405 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 21-27. Ciconia composed the motet O felix templum jubila for Stefano Carrara’s induction as bishop of Padua in 1402. In 1405, when the Carrara dynasty fell, a Venetian replaced him.
[28]Ciconia composed many polyphonic Glorias, but none of the manuscripts with Ciconia's polyphony were demonstrably destined for the choir of Padua Cathedral.
[30]Vecchi, Uffici, 169: Quod in festivitatibus duplicibus maioribus, quando dominus episcopus celebrat sive in aliis solemnitatibus specialibus per predictum episcopum solemniter celebrandis, cum cum pluvialibus in choro ut moris est tam in vespris quam in matutinis et in missa debeat magister scolarum domino episcopo ministrare tenendo baculum pastoralem et ei tam antiphonas quam Gloriam in excelsis deo et alia consueta pronuntiare et in hiis cantori preferri. Item in omnibus festivitatibus dupplicibus maioribus [...] si episcopus non celebrat, debet ipse cantor nuntiare Gloria in excelsis deo. Et tunc magistro scolarum in hoc preferri.
[31]See Antonio Lovato, “Le processioni della cattedrale di Padova nel secoli XIII-XV, “ Il liber ordinarius, cix-clxxii.
[32]Debet etiam cantor post tertiam lectionem in vigiliis mortuorum resonsorium plana voce incipere, ita quod versus eadem voce de superius valeat secundari (Vecchi, Uffici, 166). The interval is not given, but Ciconia’s Nova musica, book one, chapter 73, discusses parallel and converging organum at the fourth. On early polyphonic settings of the Office of the Dead, see Grayson Wagstaff, Music for the Dead: Polyphonic Settings of the Officium and Missa pro defunctis by Spanish and Latin American Composers before 1630 (Ph.D. diss.: University of Texas at Austin, 1995).
[33]Vecchi, Uffici, 171: [...] ac recipere in funeralibus dupplerium nomine cleri, si capitulum ibi no fit, alioquin nimine suo. Cf. Albert Blaise, Lexicon latinitatis medii aevi (Turnhout: Brepols, 1975), 328-329, duplerius = double candelabra.
[35] See RISM B XIV 2 (2004), I-105, and RISM B IV 4 (1972), 984-986 (Padua, Biblioteca capitolare, MS C 55, early 14th cn.); RISM B XIV 2 (2004), I-106 (Padua, Biblioteca capitolare, MS C 56, early 14th c. with early 15th-c. additions).
[37]Michel Huglo, “L’antienne Responsum
accepit Symeon dans la
tradition manuscrite du Processionnal,”
Gedenkschrift für Walter Pass, ed. Martin Czernin (Tutzing: Hans
Schneider,
2002), 121-129.
[40]Et duo primi se vertunt ad populum excitates illum actibus manibus ad memorias passionis domini dicentes [...].
[41]Polyphonic lamentations corresponding to polyphonic tropes, though not demonstrably those of Padua Cathedral, are edited by Giulio Cattin, Johannes de Quadris, Opera, Antiquae musicae italicae monumenta veneta sacra, 2 (Bologna: A.M.I.S., 1972), 64-74, with the variants of MS C 56. Cf. Laurenz Lütteken, "Musicus et cantor diu in ecclesia Sancti Marci de Veneciis. Note biografiche su Johannes de Quadris," Rassegna veneta di studi musicali 5-6 (1989-90): 43-62; Lucia Moro and Giulio Cattin, "Il codice 359 del Seminario di Padova (anno 1505). Canti liturgici a due voci e laude dei canonici di San Giorgio in Alga," Contributi per la storia della musica sacra a Padova, ed. Giulio Cattin and Antonio Lovato (Padua: Istituto per la Storia ecclesiastica Padovana: 1993), 160; Margaret Bent, "The Definition of Simple Polyphony. Some Questions," Le polifonie primitive in Friule e in Europa, ed. Cesare Corsi and Pierluigi Petrobelli, Miscellanea musicologica, 4 (Rome: Edizioni Torre d'Orfeo, 1989), 33-42; eadem, "Music and the Early Veneto Humanists," Proceedings of the British Academy 101 (1999): 101-130; eadem, "Pietro Emiliani's Chaplain Bartolomeo Rossi da Carpi and the Lamentations of Johannes de Quadris in Vicenza," Il saggiatore musicale 2/1 (1995): 5-15. The significance of the singing of the Lamentations in Padua is evident from three references to manuscripts containing them in the fifteenth-century library of the abbey of S. Giustina. See Giovanna Cantoni Alzati, La biblioteca di S. Giustina di Padova: Libri e cultura presso i benedettini padovani in età umanistica, Medioevo e umanesimo, 48 (Padua: Antenore, 1982), inventory in Padua, Biblioteca civica, B.P. 229, p. 169, nos. 1172 and 1185; p. 160, no. 1059.
[42]Solange Corbin, La déposition
liturgique du Christ au Vendredi Saint - Sa place dans
l'histoire des rites et du théatre religieux (Analyse de documents
portugais),
Collection portugaise, 12 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres & Lisbon:
Livraria
Bertrand, 1960), and following her,
Walther Lipphardt, interpret these tropes as a planctus whose strophes
function
as refrains.
[43]The polyphony is edited in Vecchi, Uffici, 145-160; the facsimile is on 243-249. The manuscript from San Giorgio is studied by Moro and Cattin in "Il codice 359 del Seminario di Padova.”
[44]Corbin, La deposition, lists Italian sources for a similar ceremony of the deposition of the cross on p. 63-65 (cf. P. 114-120), but the tropes do not begin, Heu, heu, Domine. The Florentine processional discussed by Corbin on p. 64 and 140 does not include Heu, heu, Domine. See note 56 below.
[45]Heu, Heu, Domine does not appear in Spanish lamentations (e-mail from Jane Hardie of 2 December 2003). See her forthcoming book: The Lamentations of Jeremiah: Ten Sixteenth-Century Spanish Prints (Ottawa, in press).
[46]Corbin
and Cattin
contend that the chant came to Portugal from the Veneto. See Giulio Cattin, "Tra Padova e Cividale:
Nuova fonte per la drammaturgia sacra nel medioevo," Il
saggiatore musicale 1/1 (1994), 11; Corbin, La
déposition , 145-157 and 259-287; eadem, Essai sur la musique
religieuse portugaise au Moyen Age (1100-1385), Collection
portugaise, 8
(Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1952), 302-315; Lucia Moro and Giulio
Cattin,
"Il codice 359," 150-151, 159-167, 188, and the transcriptions on pp.
46, 49, 57.
[47]The direction of influence seems to have been from Portugal to Italy. Corbin, Essai, 380, notes the infrequent presence of the office of St. Anthony of Padua in Portuguese manuscripts of which few are Franciscan. In La deposition, 155 (and see 243) she observes that Portuguese visitors to St. Georges in Alga often continued to Padua in pilgrimage because of their devotion to St. Anthony.
[48]In addition to the sources listed in the studies cited in note 40, see RISM B XIV 2 (2004): P-14 , f. 103v (Braga, Arquivo Distrital da Sé, MS 646, 16th c.), P-16, f. cix verso (Braga, Museu da Sé, Vitrine A, 16th c.), US-19, f. 80v (Chicago, Newberry Library, MS 155 [Western Michigan MS 1], 16th-c. addition to 14th c. manuscript for church in northern Portugal dedicated to the Virgin Mary).
[50]Moro and Cattin, “Il codice 359,” 162 (discussion) and 188 (transcription). Cf. MS C 56, transcribed in Vecchi, Uffici, 145.
[51]RISM B XIV 2, P-14, P16, US-19, and Manuel Pedro Ferreira, "As Origens do Gradual de Braga," Didaskalia 25/1-2 (1995): 57-96, especially 60-62, 96; and Walther Lipphardt, Lateinische Osterfeiern und Osterspiele, vol. 2 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1976), 581-607 [transcriptions of Florentine, Paduan, and Venetian chant for the Depositio crucis, sometime with Heu, Heu], and 627-650 [Portuguese sources: from Santa Maria da Alcobaca (1788, 1757), Braga (earliest 1558 also 1837, 1924), Coimbra (1727, 1825), Lisbon (1607, 1728, 1738, 1757, 18th c., 1803)]; idem, Teil 7: Kommentar, ed. Hans-Gert Roloff (Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 1990), 342-350 [Florence, Padua, Venice] and 357-361 [Portugal]; and Teil 9: Kommentar, ed. Roloff (1990), 880-885.
[52]See the synoptic table of the entire planctus/trope in Lipphardt, Lateinische Osterfeiern, vol. 9, p. 881. Heu, Heu is found only in Lipphardt’s Padua 2, Braga 1-3, Coimbra 1-2, Lisbon 4-6, of which the earliest sources are Padua 2 (early 15th c.) and Braga 1 (1558).
[53]See Margaret Bent, "Early Papal Motets," Papal Music and Musicians in Late Medieval and Renaissance Rome, ed. Richard Sherr (Oxford: Clarendon Press and Washington: Library of Congress, 1998), 6-7, note 5, and 28-29; who summarizes and comments on Di Bacco and Nádas, p. 28, and Robert Nosow, The Florid and Equal-Discantus Motet Styles of Fifteenth-Century Italy (Ph.D. diss.: University of North Carolinia, Chapel Hill, 1992) 87-97. Corbin, La deposition, 136-138, thinks it possible that the Lamentations reached Portugal from Italy when the Constitutions written by Fr. João Alvares introduced them to the monastery of Paço de Sousa in 1467. But a chronicle of 1510 written by the canons of Lojos, who followed the congregation (order) of St. Georges in Alga near Venice, explains that the pious practice was brought from Jerusalem and introduced in all cathedrals of Portugal in imitation of that Order. Might not these conflicting accounts represent efforts to explain and legitimize a popular practice of unknown origin?
[54]According to Nosow, The Florid and Equal-Discantus Motet Styles, 89, “In a papal response to a supplication from Salinis, dated 29 May 1403, the Roman Pope, Boniface IX, grants him a benefice at the church of ‘Sancti Salvatoris de Taaghilde’ in the diocese of Braga as a deacon and canon of the cathedral; the benefice replaces a previous (and no doubt smaller) benefice at the diocesan church of Torrados. The letter indicates that Salinis, probably still in his early twenties, at that time resided in Portugal. A second papal response, dated 10 July 1409 [...] shows Salinis collecting benefices at Lisbon, Braga, and two expectatives at Coimbra and Évora, confirming Salinis’ Portuguese connections.” The two letters are Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Registra Lateranensia, vol. 111, f. 182v, and vol. 138, ff. 105r-106r. They were made available to Nosow by John Nádas and Giuliano di Bacco.
[55]E-mail of 23 November 2003. This information was presented in the paper by John Nádas, “MS San Lorenzo 2211: Song Repertories of Early Fifteenth-Century Florence.” See Program and Abstracts of Paper Read at the American Musicological Society Sixty-Ninth Annual Meeting, November 13-16, 2003, Houston, Texas, ed. Jann Pasler (Philadelphia: American Musicological Society, 2003), p. 95.
[56]Transmission of the Lamentations tropes to Italy at this time could explain their appearance in manuscripts from Florence as well as Padua. The Florentine processional (RISM B XIV 2, I-56), Archivio dell’Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, Cod. Seria V (fondo musicale), no. 21, dates from 1449-1492 and is associated with the Lamentations by De Quadris, according to Cattin, who thinks it possible that the Heu, heu trope was sung in Florence, even though it is not written into the processional. See Lipphardt, vol. 7, p. 343; Federico Ghisi, “Un processionale inedito per la Settimana santa nell’Opera del Duomo di Firenze,” Rivista musicale italiana 55 (1953): 362-369. Also keep in mind that Zabarella became bishop of Florence.
[57]See Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Canon. Misc. 213, with introduction and inventory by David Fallows (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 45. The manuscript dates from 1426 or later (p. 19) and was copied by Johannis de Quadris or Bartolomeo da Bologna or Bartolomeo Brollo (p. 4). Other manuscripts perhaps written by the same scribe are discussed on pp. 4-5, but do not include the additions to the processional C 56.
[58]The New Grove, 837. A letter from Pope Boniface IX dated 27 April 1391 cites Johannes Ciconia as clericus capelle of Cardinal d'Alençon, who had travelled to northern Europe as papal legate. Ciconia followed his household to Rome, where he was present as a witness at the cardinal's titular church S. Maria in Trastevere. Ciconia probably owed his first contacts with Padua and the Carrara family to the Cardinal.
[59]It is true that the Heu, heu, Domine polyphony in the Paduan processional C56 is in white notation that must postdate Ciconia. Nevertheless, the historical connection between Salinis and Ciconia is compelling, and the written record documenting this trope may not be complete.
[60]I could not consult the new I manoscritti datati di Padova. Archivio di Stato, Archivio Papafava, Biblioteca Civica, Biblioteca del Seminario vescovile, ed. Antonella Mazzon, Andrea Donello et al, Manoscritti datati d’Italia, 7 (Galluzzo: SISMEL, 2003).
[61]Giovanna Cantoni Alzati, La biblioteca di S. Giustina di Padova: Libri e cultura presso i benedettini padovani in età umanistica, Medioevo e umanesimo, 48 (Padua: Antenore, 1982). The inventory, Padua, Biblioteca civica, B.P. 229, lists the following grammar treatises (some may postdate Ciconia): nos. 154, 199, 218, 508, 523, 531, 575, 577, 615, 704bis, 928, 934, 946, 956, 962, 974, 1022, 1024, 1026, 1060, 1128, 1129, 1167. Otherwise, the library contained mostly theology, classics, and liturgical books.
[62]Bent, “Music and the Early Veneto Humanists,” 106. This treatise is not cited in RISM B III 6 and is not among the texts on-line at the TML website.
[63]Annette Kreutziger-Herr, Johannes Ciconia (ca. 1370-1412): Komponieren in einer Kultur des Wortes (Hamburg: Verlag der Musikalienhandlung Karl Dieter Wagner, 1991). Her wide-ranging study considers humanism and the study of the trivium in Padua, and the place among musicians of music theorists in northern Italy as an introduction to her analyses of Ciconia’s polyphony, where she emphasizes text and poetry, rhetoric, and aesthetics. Leofranc Holford-Strevens writes: “Although Ciconia’s Latin has some stylistic pretension, it could no more have passed for humanistic than the motet-texts that speak in his name,” in “Humanism and the Language of Music Treatises,” Renaissance Studies 15/1 (2001): 424.
[64]Note, however, that Francesco Zabarella, Ciconia’s patron, did teach at the university, according to Clercx, Johannes Ciconia, 46.
[65]Suzanne Clercx and Stefano Mengozzi have recognized Ciconia’s practical approach to speculative theory in Nova musica. See Stefano Mengozzi, “The Ciconian Hexachord,” in Johannes Ciconia: Musicien, 304.
[66]It is possible that Prosdocimus never read Ciconia’s treatise. See Jan Herlinger, “Prosdocimus de Beldemandis contra Johannem Ciconiam?” Johannes Ciconia: Musicien de la transition, ed. Philippe Vendrix (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), 319, who points to the evidence that Prosdocimus read Marchettus carefully only after Ciconia’s death.
[67] On the dissemination of the treatise, see Ellsworth, “Johannes Ciconia,” 25-26. Giovanni Del Lago had Ciconia’s Nova musica in his library in Venice in the 16th century, but there is no evidence that he read it (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 5320): see Bonnie J. Blackburn, Edward E. Lowinsky, and Clement A. Miller (eds.), A Correspondence of Renaissance Musicians (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 181.
[68] An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference on Renaissance Music, Lisbon, Portugal, 26 May 2003. I am most grateful to Manuel Pedro Ferreira for his encouragement and for making books and transcriptions available to me on the Depositio crucis. I thank Michel Huglo for reading and commenting on drafts of this paper, and Suzanne Hilton and Evan Solomon for exploring some of these questions with me in my seminar of spring 2003.